Both this government and the previous government have been very supportive of making investments in infrastructure to help reinvent, in this case, an inner city in Calgary. Calgary, as you might know, is largely a suburban environment, and there was a real need, for sustainability reasons, to start building up the inner city. Both governments understood that, and led with funding and ideas.

The other thing the government can do is to be a champion. Even recently, since we're a start-up, we've had Minister Joly come to our space for the Junos in 2016 get very excited and engaged about this interdisciplinary model that we've [Technical difficulty--Editor] that celebrates some of the current activities we're doing in music now. Having champions is very important.

Minister Joly is only one person. Simon Brault, the president of the Conseil des arts du Canada, came here two days ago and did a full tour of the facility. It's the first time he has seen it. He tweeted messages about it, which is fantastic. That type of championing of a young organization, which in this case the Government of Canada has put $30 million in infrastructure money into, is absolutely critical, because at the start-up phase what you need more than anything is credibility. We haven't proven ourselves programmatically, so that type of credibility as a result of their saying that this is something they believe in and that it has great potential [Technical difficulty--Editor] forward, using creative Canada as an example, and there are other policies....

Being a champion and helping the start-up promote the space is hugely important. Recently the Government of Canada also brought the passport project to the National Music Centre, in conjunction with Manitoba Music, to help give Canadian artists export readiness skills. We hosted that. That was led by the Department of Canadian Heritage. Those kinds of investments and championing, in addition to the CRA opportunities, are great ways that you can help a start-up get off the ground.

Transcript

Discussions (0)